February 29, 2008

Daring Bakers February 2008 Challenge: Julia Child's French Bread

This month's challenge was hosted by Mary from The Sour Dough and Sara from I Like To Cook and they chose Julia Child's French Bread and let me tell you the finished product is to die for! I ended up baking one batard and two round loaves and I was very pleased with the result.

Up front I have to admit I've never really been a huge fan of Julia Child. I saw her as a child on television here and there and I knew she cooked, but she never really made that much of an impression on me. I know there are a lot of food bloggers out there that were big fans however and when this challenge was announced they were thrilled. The Julia factor didn't mean that much to me personally, but when I found out we were making French Bread however I was ecstatic! I mean homemade French Bread...What's not to love??

I've always wanted to try to make homemade French Bread, but just never got around to making any. I took one look at the recipe and its length and then coupled with some of the chatter from some of the other Daring Bakers I began to feel a bit of apprehension, but that apprehension was completely unfounded. The recipe, while in-depth, was actually quite uncomplicated and straight forward, though honestly it was time consuming, but in the end the effort was well worth the results.

The recipe said to let the bread rest for several hours before cutting into it, but we ended up enjoying one of the round loaves right out of the oven and it was heavenly! The bread was very good the next day reheated as well, but there is just something about bread right out of the oven and I actually liked it best freshly baked, but again it was really good the next day too, so you wouldn't really be cheating yourself by waiting.

I baked my loaves on my Silpats and I also placed a dish of water in the oven before preheating it to make a nice, moist baking environment. Another trick I used was spritzing the loaves with water with a spray bottle a couple of times both before baking and during the first ten minutes of the baking cycle. I also spritzed them once after removing them from the oven. I do this when I bake sour dough bread (minus the last spritz once out of the oven) and it just creates an unbeatable crust and helps the bread itself as it's baking.

The round loaves would be just perfect to hollow out and use a bread bowl for soup, chili or stew. They could also be used to serve dips or something of that nature at a party or pot luck for a little extra pizazz and flare. Most of all they could just be eaten as is, because after all we are talking homemade French Bread here and what's better than homemade bread! ;o)

The batard, the long loaf, turned out just how you would expect a loaf of French bread to turn out. Jamison actually enjoyed some of this the next night with a little butter to accompany his spaghetti. The round loaves were impressive, but the long loaf was really just beautiful. The way it baked, the slits just split perfectly, the crumb was gorgeous and I had no complaints whatsoever.

The dough itself was just gorgeous too. This is before the first rise:

It was supple and very smooth.

The next picture is after the first rise:

There were lovely little gas bubbles throughout the dough. You can see one of them poking out there on the back side.

Another element I really liked about the bread was the crumb as I mentioned above. It was so light and airy, yet it had a substance to it as well.

As I mentioned above the recipe is quite detailed. Instead of putting it here I'll just let you visit Mary and/or Sara and see the details there. Thanks ladies for a great challenge! Also don't forget to stop by the Daring Baker's Blog Roll and see how the other ladies and gentleman's loaves turned out.

I can't wait to see what next month's challenge brings! :o)

Posted by Dianne at February 29, 2008 6:48 AM

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Comments

That is some gorgeous bread! It rose so well! I love your different loaves. I didn't have the courage to try anything except batards this time but you have inspired me! Thank you!

Melinda, I do make bread from time to time. Usually not loaves though. Jamison enjoys yeast rolls so I make those for him, but I don't eat as much bread as I used to. I try to focus on whole grain bread when I do make it though.